April 14th, 2008

With a baby in one hand I pulled weeds with the other while sitting on a stone retaining wall. Mostly though, it was my mom and sister doing all the work. In the fairly good sized, bean shaped, flower bed they methodically plucked weed after weed. That morning before the work began I didn’t give the flower bed much hope. Weeds spilled out the sides and whatever was planted in there was hidden beneath the invaders. But, surprisingly, just a few short hours later the flower bed was brand new again.

As I looked out over the yard later that evening I was struck by the newness of the flower bed. It looked so good. The ugly, weedy, flower bed was hard to imagine ever having been there. There were the original plants looking newly planted. Some a little stunted but there nonetheless. There’s a lesson in this I know, is what I thought. I’ll just point out what struck me.

The weeds that took months to grow were out in a matter of hours.
There was no hint that weeds ever existed.
The flowers were there all along buried underneath.
It was ugly now it’s beautiful
I asked God what it meant for me.

I was like this flower bed full of weeds. For the past few years I felt useless for Him because the painful weeding process revealed some ugly stuff. He healed me of things past, forgave me, purged me, corrected many wrong ways of thinking and replaced lies with truth. With each weed pulled I felt freed but disgusted. I never knew how weedy I was until He started His work. How could I have let such stuff grow. Even after many weeds were gone I went through a time of sadness and grieving. I felt way too ugly spiritually to be of any use to Him. The weeds were gone but they were all I could see.

As time passed I came to a place of reconciliation with myself, my past sins, my old self. I found myself in a time of waiting on Him. What’s next Lord now that I’ve been through this process. Until now.

Like the plants and flowers under the weeds so are the giftings, talents and personality traits He planted in me when I was formed in the womb. They’ve been hidden, stunted, or choked. But they’re still there nonetheless. And now I can walk in what He has for me seeing the newness and beauty that He’s accomplished.

To be continued…

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2 Corinthians 5:17 — Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.